


Hard Lesson

by cunningErebus (ElfieRae)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Brothers, Injury, Other, Swords & Fencing, Violence, boarderline stridercest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElfieRae/pseuds/cunningErebus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro is light on his feet. Well, he always is, but today he seems faster than normal. Or maybe you’re just a little slow.</p><p>You hadn’t felt like strifing today. It was hot, you really hadn’t slept, and hell, you were just getting ready for a shower when you found the note. Your reluctance had already cost you once when he ambushed you with the help of Lil Cal as soon as you had opened the door to the roof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> oh wow, I'm finally posting something here;;; Been really rough and whatnot --not gonna bore you with it-- first thing I've written in a while, it's been hard to get motivated. :c but yeah um, [this image](http://madragingven.tumblr.com/post/29907499140/hard-lesson) inspired this, well it it was straw that broke the camels back so to speak with feels. I just HAD to get something out. So this is what came out. (Also please excuse any typos, I looked over it a few times but I might have missed something)

Bro is light on his feet. Well, he always is, but today he seems faster than normal. Or maybe you’re just a little slow.  
  
You hadn’t felt like strifing today. It was hot, you really hadn’t slept, and hell, you were just getting ready for a shower when you found the note. Your reluctance had already cost you once when he ambushed you with the help of Lil Cal as soon as you had opened the door to the roof.  
  
He tossed a few verbal jabs your way, which was more than enough to get you going. Of course it was, Bro always knew how to get you more into a strife than you were on your own, especially if you weren’t feeling up to it --which was really fucking rare. And now that you’re up here, you’re a little more into actually battling him. You hadn’t even realized that you were frustrated, that you had been keeping it in until your blades connected.  
  
It was a flash of quickly blows from him while you defended, guarding yourself from his flurry of parrys. He taunts you again; “Come on kid, hit me,” and you’re lunging at him, even though the dull ache in your muscles, in your joints from where you had been lazy the last few days, hadn’t been ready for this at all.  
  
You’ve gotten quicker on your feet over the last few years, lighter. Your flash steps are nearly as fast as Bro’s, but not quite; granted your mind isn’t in it today, your thoughts all over the place. You’re a bit sloppy and he calls you on it, knocks you down, has you rolling on the ground to get away from him. It feels like you haven’t strifed in forever.  
  
He lets Cal help you to your feet, though once you’re up, you’re back to blocking his blows again. He knocks you back, you stumble, sneakers squeaking against the tar and rocks of the roof. He taunts you, you lunge at him as he comes at you again, and you’re skidding back, nearly on your knees to keep your balance.  
  
“Get up.”  
  
You get up. He comes at you again and again, Lil Cal leading with him following not a moment behind. You’re suddenly reminded of the time he lectured you about strifes. That you had to be ready even when you weren’t. That it could happen when you least expect it, when you’re ‘not feeling up to it’. And you listened with rapt attention, absorbing all of his words, his ‘lessons’. He’s your big Bro and you look up to him, and hopefully, one day, you’ll surpass him, make him proud of you.  
  
But clearly, today, was not that day.  
  
It takes a few seconds for your mind to focus again, and you’re sure he noticed that you weren’t all here with him, which was why as soon as you were, he comes at you full force. You’re not ready but you block anyway. Its a series of thrusts, of swipes, that you’re used to, nothing new, but after a moment you realize that something is wrong when Bro backs off.  
  
He’s panting hard, and so are you. His body is tight, tense, and hes staring at you, you can feel it even if you can’t see his eyes behind those shades. It’s then that you notice there’s blood on the end of his blade. It doesn’t surprise you, you’ve seen your blood on the end of his sword before, you’ve suffered cuts, bumps, bruises when you were sloppy, when you were still learning. But he never backed off before.  
  
That’s when the pain finally hits you, its sharp and fast and it _burns_. You glance down, almost as if in slow motion, and notice that your arm is limp at your side, the tip of your sword touching the rooftop. There’s blood dripping down your arm and you can feel it rolling down your chest, your stomach beneath your shirt. You don’t have to see the cut to know its bad, that its deep. All of the blood soaking into your shirt is enough to tell you that. No, Bro’s reaction was enough for you to know that it’s bad.  
  
You look up at him again, watch his chest rise and fall like a heavy beat pounding through the air between you at the moment. You glance down at his sword again, noticing the amount of blood on it. Then it’s gone from your sight and you can feel Bro pressing against your side, lifting you up, Lil Cal laying over his shoulder looking at you. His quick movements are almost too much for you to recognize, but you shake your head, tossing away the sluggishness from a moment before, and nearly fall over with how quickly everything is moving once again.  
  
“Come on kiddo, don’t do this to me.” His voice is a deep rumble just past your ear. There’s a tone to it you don’t recognize, but you can’t concentrate on that at the moment, and instead focus on him tugging your sword from your hand while you put your arm around his shoulders, over Lil Cal. You hadn’t even realized you had nearly fallen to your knees. How fucking embarrassing. One stupid cut and you’re going all weak in the knees.  
  
You’re stumbling down the stairs when you pull yourself from your thoughts, Bro holding you up while your feet somehow manage to work on the way down the two small flights to your floor. “Shit, Dave.” Your name, the curse, is so quiet spilling over his lips while he works the door to your shared apartment open. You can’t feel your feet, so when you step over the threshold and nearly fall over, he tightens his grip on you, a soft encouragement of ‘come on, kid’ hitting your ear.  
  
It wasn’t that bad was it? You fucked up. Your head wasn’t in the game, the ball was kicked down the court and you only had one job to do. All you had to do was guard the guy aiming the football for the basket and you still managed to let him get a fieldgoal.  
  
He kicks open the bathroom door, and you hear the click of the lightswitch a moment later, a dull thump on the tiles behind you. He leans forward to let both of your swords rest against the side of the sink, clattering together while you watch his blade leave a smear of blood against the tile. He walks you over to the toilet, drops the lid and turns to finally let you sit down. You slump forward a little, pain shooting down your arm from your shoulder.  
  
There’s noise just to your left, Bro opening the medicine cabinet looking for something, then he leaves for a moment. You shift on the seat, seeth when pain pushes through you again with every movement. Damn he did get you pretty fucking good. It’ll probably leave a scar. You lift your left hand up to tug at your torn shirt, trying to get a look at it. He swats your hand away and you accidentally catch the edge of the skin and nearly shout in his face when it burns more than you had been expecting it to.  
  
He’s tugging at the bottom of your shirt, pulling you forward to get it off of you so he can see the wound he’d made. He reaches up and snatches your shades off your face before you can protest, then quickly pulls your shirt up and over your head, forcing you to lift your arms. You grunt, biting down on the inside of your cheek so you don’t shout again.  
  
He tosses your shirt on the edge of the sink, sets your shades on the top of the toilet behind you while lowering himself to his knees between your legs. You feel your face heat up when you look up and see his face right there, his pointy shades not inhibiting your view of his eyes. His fingers are dancing along your skin beneath the cut, inspecting it. It’s a long cut, starting just over your collar bone on your shoulder and going diagonal towards the center of your chest. Or rather reverse that, since the deepest part of the wound looks as though it came from an up-swipe, digging into the muscle of your chest. You idly wonder if he nicked the bone.  
  
“How the hell could you be so careless?” He glances up at you when he reaches for the bowl of water and part of a ripped towel he’d set on the floor beside you. You hadn’t noticed. Either that or he was just too fast. You don’t say anything, only frown while watching him wring out the rag. You had already started beating yourself up about it, knew that he wouldn’t just let this slide without saying something; but there was still that odd tone to his voice.  
  
“This is going to hurt.”  
  
That’s the only warning you get before he presses the rag against your skin above the cut. Warm water quickly rolls down your chest and stomach, washing the blood down with it. He pulls the rag back, drops it into the water which instantly turns red. He has another piece in his hand and when he presses it against your chest it burns against the cut, but it feels good in a way, and then starts to tingle a bit when he blows against the skin. You realize that its alcohol and he’s trying to keep the sting out like he did when you were little and scraped your knee.  
  
“Bro, I-” You start, but he puts his hand up, stopping you from speaking. You feel like a child again, like you were about to get schooled in the ways of not being the dope that you had thought you had outgrown.  
  
“I’ve got to stitch this up. It’s going to hurt.” He’s short, to the point. You shrink down but don’t take your eyes off his. “You have to stay still. You got me?”  
  
You nod.  
  
He nods back, confirming that you agreed. He pulls a needle and thread up from beside you, you assume in a bowl of alcohol that it had been soaking in. You didn’t even realize he knew how to do all this shit. Fucking one upped you again. He looks up at you, needle just in front of you. You grip the sides of the seat, ready for the pinch of pain you suspect is coming.  
  
He pushes it against your skin, forcing it through. It stings, burns bad enough that you tighten your hold on the seat, you dig your teeth into your lip to keep from making any sounds other than the hiss of breath from your nose. You duck your head down, close your eyes. The feel of the thread being pulled through your skin is weird and you don’t want to think about it. There’s another pinch, more pulling, a tug. You grunt softly, holding in any uncool shouts of pain.  
  
How _could_ you be so stupid? So careless? Of course Bro’s right. You fucked up real bad this time, and here he was picking up the mess you made and literally sewing it back together. Damn.  
  
You muffle a shout, the sound sticking in your throat when he has to pinch the skin together again. A fresh river of blood rolling down your stomach. You tilt your head up enough to look at his face, his brows furrowed in concentration while he works. He tugs again and you lower your head, biting your cheek again with the pinch of the needle, the pull of the thread.  
  
And then his hand is on your thigh, squeezing it. You feel small under his grip, feel the shame of everything rolling down over you. You shouldn’t have slacked off, should have paid more attention, should have bit the fucking bullet, had your head in the game.  
  
He squeezes your thigh again, and you look up, his eyes are on yours and gives you a small, silent nod. You duck your head back down, noticing he’s about to tug the thread again, but before he does his voice rolls over you, “You’re doing good, kid.”  
  
And then you realize, that strange tone to his voice... he’s not mad at you for fucking up, he’s concerned --you knew he was, he’s your Bro after all, but you weren’t thinking about that, you were too busy beating yourself up over this to notice that he was doing the same-- he’s beating himself up, blaming himself for what happened.  
  
He’s pressing the needle against your skin again and you finally look around the room, trying to distract your mind from it all. There’s blood smeared on the edge of the skin, on the wall, the light switch. There’s shoe prints left by you, Lil Cal discarded on the floor just inside the door; there’s blood smeared on his cheek. You look back at Bro, eyes a little wider when you realize that he literally dropped everything for you. He squeezes your thigh again and you move your hand to put it over his and squeeze back. You don’t know what to do, what to say, so instead you give him a short nod and squeeze again, silently telling him that you’re okay, that you don’t blame him. 


End file.
